Turkey - AL-MONITOR: The Middle Eastʼs leading independent news source since 2012

Turkey

Turkey

November 11, 2026

Ankara 10:31 pm

8°C

People walk past a Bitcoin sign at the entrance of a cryptocurrency exchange office on Nov. 8, 2024, in Istanbul, Turkey.

Watchdog urges Turkey to tighten digital asset rules for $144B crypto economy

A review of Turkey’s crypto-asset regulations by the Financial Stability Board acknowledged significant progress made by local authorities but called for further measures to address potential risks.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (L) and Central Bank Governor Sahap Kavcioglu attend a signing ceremony with Abu Dhabi’s crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan at the Presidential Complex in Ankara on Nov. 24, 2021. ADEM ALTAN/AFP via Getty Images

Turkey’s banking watchdog chief submits resignation amid fund scandal

Turkey’s government is facing growing criticism over regulators’ failure to prevent a fund scandal involving more than $20 billion.

Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Explainer

Iran war pushes up coal use, complicating Turkey’s COP31 pledge

Turkey is asking world leaders at COP31 to back a global push to use more electricity, even as the Iran war has driven up natural gas prices and pushed some power producers back to coal.

Latest News

Turkey bars MP’s wife from travel after his fund scandal criticism: What to know

OZAN KOSE/AFP via Getty Images

Steel factory explosion in western Turkey kills at least 16

A steel worker works in front of giant iron melting pot in Kardemir Iron and Steel Factory in Karabuk, northwestern Turkey, Aug. 26 2005. (TARIK TINAZAY/AFP via Getty Images)

Analysis

Will Democrats block Trump’s push to deliver Turkey F-35s, lift sanctions?

MEHMET ESER/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

Barin Kayaoglu

By Barin Kayaoglu

In Ankara, reporting on geopolitics and national security

Samuel Wendel

Senior Analyst, Middle East Business & Tech

In Washington, DC, reporting on regional business and tech

Amberin Zaman

Chief Correspondent

Reporting on geopolitics, minorities, human rights, culture

Jack Dutton

Chief Business Correspondent

In Bristol, reporting on regional business, climate change, AI, tech

Ezgi Akin

Associate Editor (Turkey)

In Ankara, reporting on diplomacy, EU-Turkey ties, NATO

Francesco Schiavi

In Bologna, reporting on security, defense, economy, governance

Barin Kayaoglu

In Ankara, reporting on geopolitics and national security

How one sultan's harem is another's school

Emine Erdogan's praise of the Ottoman harem as a school has disturbed and baffled Turks.

After seizing Zaman newspaper, what's next for Turkey?

Not just a few newspapers like Zaman, but the entire Turkish media is under threat by the current regime in Turkey.

Turkish soldiers stand guard as a funeral convoy, carrying coffins of drowned Syrian migrants including the three-year old boy Aylan Kurdi, drives to the Turkish-Syrian border in Suruc, bordering with the northern Syrian town of Kobani, Turkey, September 4, 2015. Two Syrian toddlers who drowned with their mother as they were trying to reach Greece were laid to rest in the Syrian town of Kobani on Friday, a Reuters witness said. A photograph of the body of one of the toddlers, 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, washed

Turkish military struggles to find new recruits

The Turkish Armed Forces has to overcome serious structural problems, including inadequate recruitment, before switching from a conscription-based military to a fully professional force.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan adjusts his sunglasses before a wreath-laying ceremony at the Jose Marti monument in Havana February 11, 2015. Erdogan is in Cuba for an official visit. REUTERS/Enrique De La Osa (CUBA - Tags: POLITICS) - RTR4P6U8

Does Erdogan believe he's on a mission from God?

Increasingly cornered and isolated both at home and abroad, Turkey's president is seeking to boost his public support by placing God directly at the center of his Islamist oratory.

Why some Turkish women are boycotting women-only taxis

A number of women have welcomed Turkey’s first women-only cab, but many activists reject the new service as further gender segregation in public life.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu speaks at a news conference at the end of a EU-Turkey summit in Brussels March 8, 2016. REUTERS/Yves Herman - RTS9QKE

Davutoglu attempts to get back to zero problems with Iran

Analysts warn that an unpredictable harsh statement by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could undermine Davutoglu’s efforts to gain a piece of the Iranian pie.

Why is Erdogan wary of women?

Women find creative and cheerful methods to circumvent bans on International Women’s Day parades, promising to celebrate their day to the fullest in the streets.

Women work at a textile factory in Kozluk, a town in the southeast province of Batman, April 21, 2011. Since Mehmet Simsek, Turkey's 44-year-old finance minister, left in the mid-1980s to go to Ankara University, his hometown of Batman has become known for incidents of Kurdish militancy and for a high number of unexplained suicides among women and girls. The other great blight on the area is rampant unemployment. Simsek is campaigning for one of Batman's four parliamentary seats in June 12 elections. Pictur

Why Turkish women are opting out of the workforce

A deeply patriarchal culture, work environments unfavorable to a healthy balance with family life and internalized gender roles keep many women in Turkey uninterested in taking advantage of opportunities to work.

Turkey’s Kurdish leader: We will struggle on in parliament ‘till the end’

Turkey’s top Kurdish political leader tells Al-Monitor his party remains committed to a political struggle despite government efforts to crush the party in parliament.

With spread of IS-like tactics, urban warfare in Turkey grows bloodier

Turkish officials believe Kurdish militants leading clashes in the southeast have learned techniques used by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units and the Islamic State in Kobani.

Co-chair of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), Selahattin Demirtas (C) attends a ceremony to mark the ninth anniversary of the killing of Turkish-Armenian editor Hrant Dink in Istanbul January 19, 2016. REUTERS/Osman Orsal - RTX232RL

Armenian animosity rekindled through PKK terror

The Justice and Development Party’s repeated insults that Kurds are considered Armenians are aimed at labeling the pro-Kurdish HDP as non-Muslim, and to justify the heavy attacks on border towns in the southeast of Turkey.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L) speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their meeting at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow, Russia, September 21, 2015. Netanyahu said his visit to Moscow on Monday was aimed at preventing clashes between Russian and Israeli military forces in the Middle East. REUTERS/Ivan Sekretarev/Pool - RTS25BW

Why Israel needs Putin more than it needs Erdogan

Reconciliation with Turkey is stalled, possibly due to Israeli-Russian security interests regarding Syria, Lebanon and Hezbollah, as well as Russian hostility to Israeli-Turkish rapprochement.